Photocollage generation and modification using image recognition

ABSTRACT

A method and system for employing image recognition techniques to produce a photocollage from a plurality of images wherein the system obtains a digital record for each of the plurality of images, assigns each of the digital records a unique identifier and stories the digital records in a database; automatically sorts the digital records using at least one date type to categorize each of the digital records according at least one predetermined criteria; employs means responsive to the sorting step to compose a photocollage from the digital records. The method and system employ data types selected from pixel data; metadata; product order information; processing goal information; or customer profile to automatically sort data typically by culling or grouping to categorize according to either an event, a person, or chronologically.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates generally to the field of photography, and inparticular to photo collections. More specifically, the inventionrelates to employing image recognition techniques for generatingphotocollages automatically.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Photographs, videos, and memorabilia collections are very commonly usedto maintain memories and events that formed a part of a persons life.These collections serve to augment the human memory and enrich theprocess of sharing stories related to the memories. When organized,viewed and shared on a regular basis a collection of memory artifactsgenerates a large reward, enriching the lives of all involved. Thenature of these collections is such that they grow steadily, event byevent, year by year, and soon become large and difficult to manage.Collections of photos and memorabilia are considered one of the mostimportant and valued possessions by most people. They are the firstthings that people think of when forced to flee their homes due to fire,flood or other natural disaster. These collections possess intrinsic,emotional value, even if they are never viewed, because the need topreserve a memory of life is strong and universal. Because of therelative importance of these memories to the persons involved, the priorart is replete with teachings that disclose organizational methods.

The most common manner of organizing these collections within the priorart is to place the photos, videos or memorabilia into either an albumor a box. Common vinyl album pages provide the means to store and viewbetween one and five standard sized photos per page. Creative peopleoften spend hours carefully selecting and arranging photos, writingcaptions, clipping newspaper articles, and other memorabilia to createvisual stories or scrapbooks. Once organized into groups or pages thesephotocollages greatly enhance a person's ability to remember and sharethe story surrounding the depicted events. These simple organizationtools allow the collections to be easily viewed and also serves toprotect the artifacts themselves. There are numerous types of albums andboxes available in the market today, ranging from simple vinyl sleevesto boxes manufactured from specialized materials designed to preservethe artifacts. Album vendors include Pioneer Photo Albums, Design Vinyland Cason-Talens. Box vendors include Exposures. None of these prior artdisclosures provide a means by which a photocollage of these memorableevents can be easily constructed by persons to who these event means somuch.

As used herein photocollage refers to a single page having a pluralityof images, such as a page in a photo album, or a composite image havinga number of images relating to a single theme such as a vacation,wedding, birthday party or the like. The concept of photocollage as usedherein also includes the concept of a bound photo album having aplurality of pages, one or more of which is a photocollage. Despite thefact that many people are engaged in collecting these memorableartifacts, few people have the free time available to invest on aregular basis to organize and maintain them. Before long, the amount ofunorganized material becomes a significant psychological barrier togetting organized. Other barriers exist which prevent people fromactively maintaining these memorabilia collections such as confidence intheir process, access to the materials, or remembering the details aboutthe event. Often, once people get started on this organizational taskthey find it rewarding and fun, but still a significant amount of work.

Many attempts have been made to provide tools for working with ororganizing photo and memorabilia collections. Computer software programssuch as Picture-It™, by Microsoft, or Creative Photo Albums™, by DogByte Development, allow people to work with digital versions of theirphotos and create digital versions of an album or print them on a homeprinter. Software products such as these require each photo or artifactexist in digital form before they can be used. Although these productsincrease the ability to change and enhance photos and scannedmemorabilia they do not reduce the amount of work needed to organizecollections or create visual stories. Other services such as Photo-Net™by PictureVision™ will scan photographs in a high-quality format at thetime of photo processing and provide a thumbnail image of the scannedimages via the Internet. A customer, using these scanned images cancreate collections of photos which can be viewed on the Internet or haveprints generated. Currently some of these services do not allow for thearrangement of several photos on a page and are limited to consumers whohave a collection of digital images and a computer connected to theInternet and who are both computer and web literate.

It should be apparent from the foregoing discussion that there remains aneed within the art for a method by which consumers can createphotocollages and photo albums (or have them made for them) in a mannerthat is as simple as ordering prints.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention addresses the need for an improved method ofgenerating photo albums from consumer photographs that requires aminimum amount of effort but yields a high-quality product and isreasonably priced.

The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of theproblems set forth above. Briefly summarized, according to one aspect ofthe present invention, a system and method for producing a photocollagefrom a plurality of images, comprising the steps of: a) obtaining adigital record for each of the plurality of images, each of the digitalrecords having a unique identifier and storing the digital records in adatabase; b) automatically sorting the digital records using at leastone date type to categorize each of the digital records according atleast one predetermined criteria; c) employing means responsive to thesorting step to compose a photocollage from the digital records. Thesystem then associates each of the images with at least one of thecategories followed by a sorting step that arranges the images accordingto the categories. The system then employs the categories toautomatically construct the photocollage from the stored images bygenerating a plurality of pages of the stored images.

These and other aspects, objects, features and advantages of the presentinvention will be more clearly understood and appreciated from a reviewof the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments andappended claims, and by reference to the accompanying drawings.

ADVANTAGEOUS EFFECT OF THE INVENTION

The present invention has the following advantages: Allows the user tohave (1) an easy method for creating professional looking photocollages,(2) duplication of photocollages, and (3) keeping photocollage files forlater use.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the basic system elements used inpracticing the present invention; and

FIG. 2 is a system diagram showing the collection steps that take placeonce a customer has delivered images to the system;

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram showing the active processing goal steps usedby the system of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the steps performed by the presentinvention; towards a story preparation based photocollage.

To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have beenused, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common tothe figures.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

An acceptable photo album or photocollage can be created automaticallyfrom customers' exposed film, negatives, or digital images.

Referring to FIG. 1, which is the method as envisioned by the presentinvention designed to automatically produce photocollages includingalbums 17, CDs 15 and other image-based keepsakes 11. The process oftransforming the supplied image material into a photocollage is referredto as Story Preparation services. Story Preparation services applies thenecessary amount of image understanding embodied in a collection ofprocessing modules executed in a non-linear sequence to create a storyrepresentation of the images. In a preferred embodiment these processingmodules include: collecting, sorting, culling, annotating, grouping,enhancing, associating and, composing. These steps can be performed inthe order listed or they may be rearranged in different sequencesdepending upon the desired output product. The production of aparticular photocollage product may include one, two or, more of theavailable steps. Which steps are used and in what sequence is determinedby the system based upon the desired product. It is important toremember that the present invention envisions providing sufficient imageunderstanding of the subject images with the ultimate goal of teachingthe system to understand that there are pervasive themes that existwithin various sets of images and recognizing these themes therebycreating an image story product, or photocollage.

As shown in FIG. 2, the collection step begins when a customer, havingcompleted picture taking for one or more events delivers one or moreexposed film strips or cartridges 10, digital still camera memory cards12, photographic prints 6 or video camera media 8 to a processingfacility 14. At the time that the customer delivers the exposed filmcartridge(s) to the processing facility the customer's identity isrecorded and associated with the suite of film cartridges and otherimage sources. Alternatively the customer identity may be encoded on thefilm by exposing a machine-readable sequence of marks along the edge ofthe film or by using the magnetic coating on the Advanced Photo Systemfilm. The conventional film processing takes place with conventionalcorrection of exposed photographs to balance color and brightness andcontrast. The exposed film images are chemically processed 16 togenerate an optical image. These optical images are then scanned 18 toproduce a high-resolution digital file that is archived in a data store20. In general, to produce a high-resolution printed image of 8×10 inchsize, a resolution of 1538×1024 pixels is required. Digital Still Cameraimages from Digital Still Camera memory cards that are delivered to theprocessing facility are digitally processed 22 to produce an equivalentdigital image file of similar size and stored on the data store 20.Analog video camera images on media 8 delivered to the processingfacility are digitized and processed before storage on the data store20. At the conclusion of this step in the process there exists acollection of digital image files associated with a customer by means ofa customer identification. This collection of digital image data, orpixel data 32, is now available as a source of data for the StoryServices processing modules. Data attached or associated with individualimages or groups of images provided by the customer such as date, time,location, sound, camera identification, customer identification,exposure parameters, Advanced Photo System IX data, are all examples ofmeta-data. This meta-data 34 is stored on image store 20 and associatedwith the available pixel data 32. In addition the customer selects thedesired output product or product type from a listing of availablechoices. This selection may be indicated by the customer marking thephoto processing bag 24, verbally indicating the desired product to aclerk or by input at a computer terminal or kiosk 28. The orderdescription 36 generated from any one of the indicated sources providedby the customer is stored on the system and is associated, by means of acustomer identification, with an existing customer profile 30 in thedata store 20.

At the conclusion of the collection step the pixel data, meta-data,customer profile and order description are available as input data forthe subsequent processing steps. These steps can be performed in theorder listed or they may be rearranged in different sequences dependingupon the desired output product. The production of a particularphotocollage product may include one, two or, more of the availablesteps. Which steps are used and in what sequence is determined by thesystem based upon the desired product. Following the collection step butbefore subsequent processing steps are performed, the specificprocessing to be applied to the collected set of image material isdetermined in a process goal generation step 37 and embodied in a set ofphotocollage processing goals 38. For each of the output productsrequested the system determines an optimum sequence of processing stepsto be applied. The processing of the output product or products willfollow this system determined processing sequence, unless the sequenceis modified by one of the processing modules. The processing output foreach module is stated as one or more processing step goals. Theprocessing in each step uses the stated processing step goals to controlthe logic, rules, and parameters applied during the processing of thecollected image material to satisfy the stated processing step goal orgoals. In addition to accomplishing processing goals each processingstep can also create goals for itself or future processing steps. Newgoals, which result from executing a particular processing step, reflectnecessary adjustments of desired parameters because the original goal isimpossible to achieve or the processing step may generate new goals forsubsequent processing steps. The initial set of processing goals 38 isdetermined by retrieving a default processing description from adatabase of available products 40 maintained by the system. . Once theinitial set of processing goals is determined the photocollageprocessing is initiated by the system.

As described, the automatic processing of photocollages is carried outin processing modules employed to perform these image understanding andinterpretation steps. Each processing module relies on data from anumber of sources in order to satisfy the processing goal. Eachprocessing module has access to five sources of data: pixel informationcontained in the individual images, meta-data attached to images orgroups of images, the original product or service order description, thelist of active processing goals maintained by the system and, a customerprofile containing information about the customer. The pixel data 32 foreach image provides each module with the opportunity to apply imageprocessing and image understanding algorithms. The meta-data 34 as usedherein refers to the information attached to the individual images andto groups of images will contain information about the image or group ofimages which originated at the time of capture or was generated in priorprocessing of the image or group of images. Date, time, location, sound,camera identification, customer identification, exposure parameters,Advanced Photo System IX data, are all examples of meta-data that are,in a preferred embodiment, be attached to the original input images. Theoriginal product or service order description 36 contains the specificproduct request from the customer and any notes that were captured inthe ordering process. At any time in the processing of the image orgroup of images the system will have a list of active processing goals38. Active goals are the processing goals for each processing module,which have yet to be accomplished by the system. At the start ofprocessing this list will include the specific product or productsrequested by the customer, along with the translation of these productgoals into system and module goals. The customer profile includes bothfactual and uncertain information related to the customer. The factualdata would include general items such as name, address, names and agesof individuals in the household, important dates, anniversaries, productpreferences and purchase history. In addition factual data such as facerecognition feature vectors of the immediate family and extended family,voice training sets, handwriting samples, would also be included in thecustomer profile database. Uncertain information would includeprocessing goals recommended by processing modules from previous orderprocessing, image understanding assertions about the contents of theimage or groups of images which have not been verified or otherunverified information or assertions. Information and data contained inthe customer profile is updated with every order processed to reflectchanges in order preferences, order history and update uncertaininformation. In order supply the system with the necessary amount ofimage understanding required to arrange the images into set inaccordance with themes relating to predetermined criteria that must beprovided for the system to have the capability to identify attributeswithin the images. For example, in a preferred embodiment, if a customerrequests a birthday photocollage the system will retrieve the defaultprocessing goals which indicate that the steps of collecting, sorting,culling, annotating, and composing will be involved in the processing ofthe requested product. In addition the processing goals for each of themodules will reflect the default attributes necessary to process abirthday product. In this example the sorting module processing goalswill include a sort by date goal and a sort by content goal. The sort bydate processing goal is further refined to sort the images that occur onor near a target list of dates which are determined from a list of knownbirthdays retrieved from the customer profile into the photocollage.

In a preferred embodiment each processing module performs processing ontwo distinct levels: objective and subjective. The objective processingdeals with factual information about the images or groups of images orwith data calculated deterministic algorithms. Examples of factual datainclude the size of the image, capture parameters, histograms, imagetransforms, etc. Commercially available software programs such as AdobePhotoshop® and Corel Draw® process images using objective data.Subjective processing deals with information that is uncertain or datais the result of non-deterministic algorithms. Often subjective resultscarry with them a confidence factor which allows subsequent processingsteps to interpret the results. Usually subjective results occur whenattempting to determine abstract information about an image or group ofimages. Examples of this type of the processing would be face detection,face recognition, facial expression determination, locationdetermination, assertions, interpretations, etc. Commercially availablesoftware programs such as FaceIT© by Visionics Corp. process images toassociate faces in images with names and other information. Someprocessing modules process only subjective information, others processonly objective information and still others process both.

As shown in FIG. 3 the processing of a photocollage is directed by thesystem using the active processing goals 38, 48, and 49. Because theprocessing goals are non-deterministic, vary by requested product andmay be modified during the processing there exist a large number ofpossible processing sequences. The progression of processing applied tothe collected image material is applied in sequential steps. Each stepimplements a single processing module that is intended to satisfy orpartially satisfy an active processing goal. At each step in the processany one of the available processing modules (culling 62, grouping 64,enhancing 66, annotating 68, associating 70, or composing 72) may beexecuted. At the conclusion of the processing of a particular step theactive processing goals 38 that existed before the step processing areupdated to reflect the changes in goals that resulted from the executionof the processing step 52. These updated active processing goals 48serve as the input processing goals for the subsequent processing step53. Each of the available processing modules will be described. Inaddition to the processing goals 38, 48, and 49, the processing modulesat each processing step have access to four sources of information:pixel data 32 contained in the individual images, metadata 34 attachedto images or groups of images, the original product or service orderdescription 36 and, a customer profile 30 containing information aboutthe customer. This process can iterate as many times as necessary tocomplete the desired product objectives.

The processing of the collection of digital image material is reviewedto remove unwanted images. This step is called culling. Culling isperformed on images that are deemed unwanted due to poor quality, or ifthere are several images that are similar in composition and only one isdesired. To accomplish this culling process involves the computation ofseveral image based metrics using the pixel data 32. These metrics fallinto two basic categories: technical quality measures and abstractfeature metrics. The technical quality measures would involvecalculations to assess the overall sharpness of the image, exposurequality, grain quality of the image. Algorithms used to calculatetechnical quality measures are common in the art, examples wouldinclude: “Estimation of Noise in Images: An Evaluation” by S. I. Olsonin, 55 (4), 1993, pp. 319-323 and “Refined filtering of image noiseusing local statistics” by J. S. Lee in Computer Vision Graphics andImage Processing, 15, 1981, pp. 380-389.

Images are then given an overall rating of technical quality based onthe technical quality metrics. The overall image quality metric is thencompared to a threshold associated with the processing goal. Imageswhose quality rating falls below the threshold are flagged as unwanted.The specific threshold applied to a given image or set of images isparametrically determined using the processing goal 38 and the customerprofile 30 as inputs. In addition to the determination of specificobjective image features, abstract subjective image features are alsocalculated. These subjective measures of the image allow the module tocull unwanted or unnecessary images. A typical example of images whichrequire culling occurs when several images in the group are similarlycomposed and contain nearly identical content such as a group photowhich is repeated several times. In order to choose the best of thisgroup of images the digital image is analyzed to determine a qualitymetric composed of both objective and subjective quality features. Thebasis for this subjective assessment would be the presence or absence offaces, the identification of the faces in the image, the number of facespresent, if the eyes are open on each face, if the subject is smiling,or orientation of the face to the camera. Examples of algorithms used todetermine subjective features of an image are described in Proceedingsof the IEEE Computer Society conference on Computer Vision and PatternRecognition, June 1997. These subjective features provide clues aboutthe subjective quality of the image. The objective and subjectivefeatures calculated for each image are combined and the images areranked according to the relative importance of each feature analyzed tothe processing goal 38 and which matches the stored customer preferences30. The ranking, because it is partially based upon subjectiveinformation also carries a probability weighting factor. The combinationof the ranking and the probability weighting factor is used to assert adecision about the quality of the image. This quality assertion isretained with the image as metadata 34 and is passed to the nextprocessing step. In the grouping step images are grouped according tocriteria derived from the analysis of the customer profile 30, theactive processing goals 38 and the requested product or service 36. Thegoal of grouping images is to associate images that are a part of acommon theme or story in the mind of the customer. Typical groupingsderived from customer profiles 30 would be to associate images accordingto the preferred organization scheme of the customer. The attributes oftypical organization schemes would include organizing by events such asbirthday party, vacation, holiday, graduation, organizing by time, andorganizing by people. Customer requested products 36 could also dictategrouping parameters in accordance with the product design. Examples ofthese grouping schemes include grouping by location in a theme park, bycommon life-cycle event such as graduation, by image content type suchas outdoor, indoor, nature, person, group, etc. A variety of softwarealgorithms exist which are applicable to grouping. One class of softwarealgorithms operates on metadata 34 associated with the image where thegrouping process is similar to searching a media database. Severalcommercial examples of media databases that allow searching are PictureNetwork Incorporated, Publishers Depot (www.publishersdepot.com). Asecond class of algorithms employed for this grouping process wouldinclude image processing algorithms which identify objects and featuresets within an image by way of the pixel information 32. These objectscould represent typical cultural icons such as birthday cakes, Christmastrees, graduation caps, wedding dresses, etc. An example of suchalgorithms is reported by J. Edwards and H. Murase, “Appearance Matchingof Occluded Objects Using Course-to-fine Adaptive Masks” in Proceedingsof the IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and PatternRecognition, June 1997, pp. 533-546. The Product Order Information 36can also be used in this grouping by simply stating the event orlocation or person on which to base the final product. The ProcessingGoals 38 can also be used as a grouping tool where the specific productsoffered mandate a specific grouping.

The annotation step seeks to generate annotation that can be composed onthe story product or photocollage. Annotation is designed to providecontext information about the image or group of images and assist thecustomer in communicating the story surrounding the images. A verycommon form of annotation is text associated with each image and with agroup of images which explains the “who, what, when, where, and why”.Such context information is generally derived from metadata 34 generatedin previous processing steps, user profiles 30 or, image understandingalgorithms applied in the annotation module. “Who” information may bedetermined using face recognition algorithms applied to the pixel data32 tuned by the training data contained in the customer profile 30.Using a commercial product such as “Facelt” by Visionics, a database ofknown faces can be retrieved from the customer profile 30 and used toguide the face recognition software. “What” information can be assertedby correlating date and time of the image capture available in the imagemetadata 34 with key dates contained in the customer profile 30. Inaddition more “what” data can also be asserted by looking within theimage 32 for specific cultural icons, derived from object recognitionalgorithms, such as birthday cakes, Christmas trees or, graduationrobes. “When” information for annotation is easily determined usingmetadata 34 such as date and time recorded at the time of capture.“Where” information may be provided from the capture device integratedwith GPS (Global Positioning System) technology and then added to themetadata 34 for the image or it can be guessed at using imageunderstanding algorithms which correlate known location scenes with theimage content from available images 32. “Why” information is verydifficult to determine without some input from the image owner via theproduct order information 36. The annotation, once determined, can berendered as text, graphics, images, video or sound and associated withthe individual images or with the group of images in either atraditional photocollage or digital product.

The image enhancement module applies image processing to improve theimage for the intended story based purpose. Two categories of imageenhancement are considered for each image. Basic image enhancements areapplied to all images, as necessary, would include: red-eye removal,brightness and contrast adjustment, color adjustment, and crop and zoomto improve composition. Image enhancements are applied directly to thepixel data 32 and recorded in the image metadata 34 from the images. Asecond category of image enhancement is applied to the images in orderto enhance their use within a story context to communicate the emotionor to support the story theme as described in the processing goal 38.For instance, selected images from a wedding story would be softenedusing a blur algorithm or the colors of an image could be made to matchthose found in a comic strip. The application of this type ofenhancement processing is either specified in the product description 36generated from the customer profile 30. All of these operations areavailable in image editing software programs such as Adobe PhotoShop,with the exception of red-eye removal and red-eye removal can beaccomplished via the Kodak Imaging Workstation and other software suchas Picture-It from Microsoft.

Some product specifications will include a processing goal to associateexternal content that is relevant to the product and the image content.This associated content provides additional context and interest in thefinal rendered product. External content takes several forms includingweather reports, newspaper headlines, stock photographs, advertisements,historical references, travel brochure copy, popular music clips, videosegments, etc. In order to locate and find appropriate content for theimage story/photocollage the metadata 34 attached to each image andimage group and is interrogated to derive searchable topics or specificinformation located in the customer profile 30. These search topicswould focus on the when, where, what aspects of the image story. Once aseries of potential search topics have been assembled they are formattedinto queries and searches are performed on a variety of databases. Theresults of these content queries is then refined by applying priorityrules from the product description database and customer preferencesstored in the customer profile 30. These types of searches are common ininformation databases such as Yahoo® on the internet (www.yahoo.com) orfrom Dialog corp. If there are items within the image that can beidentified with specific events (such as a wedding or birthday) or if aperson can be identified from imaging algorithms, the Pixel Information32 is used to determining the types of additional content that areadded. The Processing Goals 38 dictate the forms and types of associatedcontent that is added. The Product Order Information 36 is also a sourceof information regarding the association of content by a special requeston the form (such as a theme park or wedding motif).

The layout processing module places the image data, annotations, andassociated content into an output ready format. This layout step must berepeated for each product that was requested by the customer and foreach layout goal that was generated during the processing steps. Themain task involved in the layout of a multi-page photocollage is thedetermination of which images are to be placed in specific locations onspecific pages. In addition the external content which has beenassociated with the individual images or groups of images must becomposited onto the page. The layout process may be accomplished innumerous ways. One means of performing this processing step is to employa parametric photocollage description. This description specifies thegeneral structure of the photocollage but is not sufficient, of itself,to specify a final photocollage product. The description file includesphotocollage features such as number of sections, size and format ofindividual pages, maximum and minimum number of pages allowable, maximumand minimum number of customer images allowable per page, sectiondescriptions, cover designs, location of allowable stock content, etc.By employing a photocollage description file a variety of tailoredphotocollage products may be designed incorporating features specific tothe design goals. The layout step begins by reading the photocollagedescription file to initialize a layout algorithm. The layout algorithmthen works page by page and section by section to apply specific layoutrules guided by the values in the photocollage description file. Avariety of page/section layout algorithms could be employed which embodydifferent design philosophies for photocollage products. The finalphotocollage product can be rendered on a variety of output media typeswhich would include paper, fabric, as a digital file or on any one of anumber of digital media forms such as a CD. The Processing Goals 38 areused to determine the capabilities of the specific devices being used.Customer Profiles 30 are used to determine color preferences, layoutpreferences, and design considerations. Metadata 34 is used to determinethe placement of associated content with specific images.

FIG. 4 shows the system diagram for Story Preparation Services. Input tothe system comes from Personal Computers 90 (using albuming softwaresuch as Microsoft Picture It, Family Base from Micro Dynamics or amyriad of others), an interactive kiosk 88, via the phone orover-the-counter written order forms 84, a retail outlet 82 with linksto the system, or digitization services 80 specializing in convertinganalog material into digital information. The information needed toperform the story services is communicated via traditional meansincluding mail, phone, modem, Internet or other on-line servicesprovided by information communication 92 to system 93. The componentsrequired by system 93 include a workstation 94, a digitization systemfor pictures, video and audio 104, a storage facility 102, an operatorinterface 96, algorithms and software 98 for the analysis of the dataand to provide the necessary steps to complete the product, and anoutput delivery system 100 for printing or other media.

The invention has been described with reference to a preferredembodiment. However, it will be appreciated that variations andmodifications can be effected by a person of ordinary skill in the artwithout departing from the scope of the invention.

PARTS LIST

6 photographic prints

8 camera media

10 cartridges

11 keepsakes

12 memory cards

14 processing facility

15 CDs

17 albums

20 data store

22 digital processing

24 processing bag

28 kiosk

32 pixel data

34 meta-data

36 order description

37 goal generation

38 processing goals

40 products

48 processing goals

49 processing goals

62 culling

64 grouping

66 enhancing

68 annotating

70 associating

72 composing

80 digitization services

82 retail outlet

84 written order forms

88 kiosk

90 personal computers

92 information communication

93 system

94 workstation

96 operation interface

98 algorithms and software

100 output delivery system

102 storage facility

104 digitization system for pictures, video and audio

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of automatically producing aphotocollage from a plurality of images, the method comprising the stepsof: a) obtaining a digital record of the plurality of images via acommunication system, each of the digital records having a uniqueidentifier which digital records are stored in a database; b)automatically obtaining at least one predetermined, photocollageprocessing goal independent of manual input; c) automaticallytranslating the processing goal into a plurality of processing stepsbased upon a predetermined criteria; d) automatically applying theplurality of processing steps using data from one or more of pixel data,processing goal information, or customer profile information in eachstep for sorting the digital records; and e) automatically composing thephotocollage from the digital records based on results on the sorting.2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of processingsteps includes employing individually or in combination culling,grouping, enhancing, annotating, associating, arranging, or composing.3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the translating step furthercomprises employing a story-based model.
 4. The method according toclaim 1, wherein the translating step further comprises using analysisof the pixel data from one or more of the digital records.
 5. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the step of applying the plurality ofprocessing steps further comprises culling records based upon analysisof pixel data for low quality and or duplicate images.
 6. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the step of translating further comprisesusing criteria which are either subjective criteria or objectivecriteria.
 7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step ofproducing a photocollage further comprises generating additionalprocessing goals based upon partial satisfaction of previous processinggoals.
 8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step (a) furtherincludes scanning the images to obtain the digital records.
 9. Themethod according to claim 1 further comprising using individually or incombination either date; time; location; Advanced Photo Standardinformation on exposure; sound files; or camera identification data asadditional data.
 10. The method according to claim 1 further comprisingcollecting customer order information as additional data furtherincludes collecting customer order information.
 11. The method accordingto claim 1 further comprising maintaining a customer profile pertinentto creating the photocollage as additional data.
 12. A system ofautomatically producing a photocollage from a plurality of images, thesystem comprising: a) means for obtaining a digital record for each ofthe plurality of images via a communication system, each of the digitalrecords having a unique identifier which digital records are stored in adatabase; b) means for automatically obtaining at least onepredetermined, photocollage processing goal independent of manual input;c) means for automatically translating the at least processing goal intoa plurality of processing steps based upon a predetermined criteria; d)means for automatically applying the plurality of processing stepsemploying data individually or in combination from one or more of pixeldata, processing goal information, or customer profile information ineach step for sorting the digital records; and e) means forautomatically composing the photocollage from the digital records basedon results on the sorting.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the meansfor processing includes means for employing individually or incombination either culling, grouping, enhancing, annotating,associating, arranging, or composing.
 14. The system of claim 12,wherein the means for translating further comprises means for usinganalysis of the pixel data from one or more of the digital records. 15.The system of claim 12, wherein the means for applying the plurality ofprocessing steps further comprises means for culling records based uponanalysis of pixel data for low quality and or duplicate images.
 16. Thesystem of claim 12, wherein the means for translating further comprisesmeans for using criteria that are either subjective criteria orobjective criteria.
 17. The system of claim 12, wherein the means forproducing the photocollage further comprises means for generatingadditional processing goals based upon partial satisfaction of previousprocessing goals.
 18. The system of claim 12, wherein the means forobtaining digital records further includes scanning the images to obtainthe digital records.
 19. The system of claim 12 further comprising meansfor using individually or in combination date; time; location; AdvancedPhoto Standard information on exposure; sound files; or cameraidentification data as additional data.
 20. The system of claim 12further comprising the means for collecting customer order informationas additional data.
 21. The system of claim 12 further comprisingmaintaining a customer profile pertinent to creating the photocollage asadditional data.